Bombs or Bikinis?

YouTube has been giving each of the presidential candidates an important platform with their YouTube Spotlight, granting each of them a week. Hillary Clinton used hers to pick a campaign song (which everyone with a modicum of taste may wind up hating her for before all this is over). The reach of the Spotlight has been powerful — Clinton and Obama’s videos have each gotten over a half million impressions, and even marginal wack jobs like Tom Tancredo have received over 250,000 impressions.Chris Dodd is using his to call bullshit on the media’s obsession with haircuts, bikini clad models and other fluff while people are dying and to promote the “Dodd Amendment” to end the war in Iraq. He’s encouraging everyone to go pay a visit to your senator over the upcoming recess because they just don’t seem to be getting the picture that the American people want out of Iraq.

We’ve long been told that representatives really listen when people show up at their offices, and each person who cares enough to pay a personal visit is considered the representative of many, many more. Matt Browner-Hamlin, who is now working for Dodd, did just this as part of our Roots project when he and other FDLers delivered a copy of “Crashing the Gates” to every member of Congress and knows something about how powerful this simple act can be.

The Dodd Amendment calls for troop withdrawals to being within 30 days, meaningful benchmarks for the Bush administration (rather than their Iraqi victims) and reports to Congress. If ending the war is more important to you than what jingle someone walks on stage to, consider visiting your Senator and telling them you support it.

Update: Folks are using the comments section for meet-ups in their areas, so feel free to join in.

Jane Hamsher

Jane is the founder of Firedoglake.com. Her work has also appeared on the Huffington Post, Alternet and The American Prospect. She’s the author of the best selling book Killer Instinct and has produced such films Natural Born Killers and Permanent Midnight. She lives in Washington DC.Subscribe in a reader